I suspect Andrew Mitchell has a recurring dream. Every morning, as the first birds sing and before the morning papers land with a sickening thud on his doorstep, he begins to twitch in his sleep. Mrs Mitchell knows the signs. There will be no more sleep for her this dawn. She sighs.

In his dream, the chief whip is riding his bike along Downing Street from number 12. He nears the gates at the end. A policeman steps forward: "Excuse me sir, would you mind dismounting, and wheeling your bicycle through the pedestrian gate?"

"Why, of course, officer," Mr Mitchell replies. "In the past your colleagues have been kind enough to open the main gates for me, but I do appreciate that they may have been bending the rules, if ever so slightly! You, however, are merely doing your job in difficult and possibly dangerous circumstances, and I will be more than happy to comply with your wishes."

As he dreams on, the policeman gives him a respectful salute, and moments later he is back on his bike, wobbling down Whitehall towards a well-deserved dinner at the Carlton Club.

Then, suddenly and without warning, he wakes up, screaming! He has the opposite of that moment of utter relief we feel on waking from a nightmare realising it hasn't happened. But it has! The waking horror continues once more, all over again, unceasingly!

And that is certainly what Labour wants. They are still milking this event for everything they can. On Wednesday the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, used it as yet another reason why, in her view, Labour has become the law and order party.

Boris Johnson had said that people who swear at the police should be arrested. "Except, it seems, in Downing Street. It really comes to something when the prime minister and the government chief whip are reprimanded for their lack of respect by a fellow member of the Bullingdon Club!"

All the buzz words, and the buzz thoughts are there. Privilege, arrogance, contempt for public servants. Limitless bliss for Labour.

Ed Miliband answered questions from party members at the conference . The transformation of the gawky geek over the past year has been extraordinary. He looked calm, relaxed, confident. He was more like a slightly old-fashioned TV host – Val Doonican perhaps – than a political leader. After a while I realised that he was flirting with the party, making mildly risqué jokes, tickling the ladies' fancies. "I remember kissing you! … a great-grandmother? You don't look old enough!"

He could even get away with a little lecture. After past defeats the party had turned inward. "We took leave of the electorate, and we took leave of our senses."

Not now. The message was clear: stick with me, and we'll win. It might not be true, but it left them sighing with pleasure. Unlike Mrs Mitchell.